What’s this?! Okay so they’ve got two new products that look interesting. First is Nissin Top Ramen Short Cuts. What it is are the seasoned short noodles – like the Spoon-It or the ones you find in the Nissin Big Cup Noodles. The box has a big bag (4 1/2 cups) of the pre-seasoned noodles. Basically, it’s instant noodles meets the portion sizing ability of instant potatoes. Also, other than Top Ramen packs, I think this is the first thing they’ve used the Top Ramen name on before! They come in Chicken, Roast Chicen, Beef and Lime Chili.

The other new addition is called Nissin Top Ramen Cucharealo. I’m not sure what Cucharealo means, but it’s obviously for the latino market – some great sounding flavors include Home-style Picante Chicken, Tomato-Chicken and Habanero Shrimp.

You hungry? Ya! What joo hungry pho? Phoya? Phoshizzle… I dunno – I think they think they’re really clever with this one. So I’ll review it pho ya….

Here’s the specs…

From left to right we have an extremely well filled pack of dry seasonings, then veggies and finally some seasoned/infused oil. It’s definitely got onion in it but a little piece looked like a bee’s wing! Pretty neat.

Flat rice noodles topped with insanity! I’m hoping this’ll be a good one!

Click image to enlarge. The finished product. I’ve had pho before; the real thing. This doesn’t even come close – here’s why. First, the noodles in pho are usually strands and not broad. Second, the broth has a richness that a little packet of oil can’t bring to life. Thirdly, sweet basil is a flavor that’s enjoyed throughout the dish and this stuff hasn’t got even a hint of it. Now if I hadn’t ever had pho and I was reviewing it on it’s merits alone (which is how I’m going to rate this), I would say the noodles are mushy, the broth is extremely greasy and almost goopy in its thickness. Disappointing. 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.

Never seen this before – I also got a chicken variety as well I’ll review a bit down the road. I like the name – Phoya… Maybe there could be a froyo and pho place called PhoYo? Ya!

Three packets – starting from top going clockwise, we have veggies, seasoned oil and dry powder.

Everything sitting on top of the rice noodle ‘block.’ More like a pillow of them…

All done with a couple fried eggs. So the noodles weren’t all that great – kind of funky. The broth was kind of bland too, and the veggies were unimpressive. They did come with a neat little folking fork you can check out in the 8/30/2011 update of Included Forks: A Special Report. Unfortunately, a spiffy fork does not a groovy bowl noodle make. 2.75 out of 5.0 stars.

Odd lady making beef pho eventually.

I watched this all of the time when I was a kid – this is truly awesome and something I’ve been looking for for a long time!